Graveland – Hour of Ragnarok- (Inferna Profundus Records)

The return of the PAGAN CULT.

Pagan black metal classic band Graveland is back over again with Rob Darken (Robert Fudali) and his cohorts doing the bast black metal music possible without changing their HEATHEN ideology which was Celtic and now is a Viking one for quite some time.

But this band doesn’t need explanation, introduction, reason or rhyme, so let’s go straight to the tracks!

The epic album opens up with a track called The Wolf of Twilight, and the peculiar black metal done by Graveland is as always: fast, Bathory-oriented, boisterous drum attack but with clamoring keyboards that resounds like trumpets of symphonic proportions. Kind of melodic? Yeah, but without it, it’s no Graveland.

The title track follows suit: now this one goes a little bit away from the Bathory realm and sounds very original and it has the balls to put enough change of phrases and not sounding some stupid technical band, there is a perfect balance between the raw and the well done, and it is from the DECADES of experience under the Graveland flag, it’s not different from the past but it’s always better and better!

Now I daresay that Children of Hyperborea is the sound of the year: the viking melodic vocals is something that emanates pagan pride in a brave chant just to explode in a very virulent black metal however to return to the melodic part back again: it’s a song of heroic proportions, rasping and pleasing at the same time. What a masterpiece!

Track Enlightened by the Wisdom of Runes is another thunderous piece of masterpiece over again and Mr. Fudali puts the “epicness” into perspective with much of the elements inside de disc into one song, and what a helluva of illumination!

Hour of Ragnarok is an insanely well-crafted album by a band that has been running for so long and it’s impossible to get a negative result when the case is this. Graveland is tradition above merely commercial black metal, and this is what the true pagan spirits have been seeking for so long.

Hour of Ragnarok is out on August 23^rd via Inferna Profundus Records.

Rating: 10/10

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Roderick Blutrache

ELEGIAC – Pagan Storm – De Tenebrarum Principio

A storm of black laden riffs.. but is it really necessary?

Elegiac is a product of a modern world. As the music goes unbridled in these days of internet, bands start their own discographies and they produce as long as they want. Some call them prolific.

The fact is that with less time to appreciate whole albums back to back, Elegiac goes against the grain and Pagan Storm (honestly, the only album I’ve ever heard from Zane Young, the only member of Elegiac) can be considerate a good album or a really pain in the ass, depending on one’s mood.

Sure, production-wise, it’s perfect, really, the sound is like a Graveland mixed with Iuvenes, really good mastering, long songs, repetitive riffs and all the brouhaha.

The only different song of the album is the title track that is like a blackened thrash metal statement, but the rest of the album is mid-tempo laden music, monotonous and obscure.

The problem is, in the haste to create a biography/discography and the name for itself, the band forgets they are not Burzum or any other band I cited here. It’s always cool to listen to new bands, but in the case of Elegiac, the band has released countless stuff since 2014! (And YES, I’ve got the word a new album is coming in January!). Who is the fan who’s asking desperately for so many Elegiac releases?

The album clocks in at one hour and I imagine that I should have at least one entire day to stay inside my home listening to the entire Elegiac catalog, non-stop mode.

It’s not that bad, really, but thank you, I have some work to do…

Pagan Storm is out now on De Tenebrarum Principio and can be found as a Limited Digipak on ATFM’s site (the parent label of De Tenebrarum Principio) or in digital sound on Bandcamp

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(Daniel “Roderick Totentanz” Death)

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